Hillarys Pelagic Summary - 2nd August 2009

[Frank O'Connor <>]

Perth Western Australia Pelagic Trip
Report Sunday 2nd August 2009

Participants (26) :

Frank O'Connor (organiser), Alan Collins (organiser), Ben Allen,
Martin Cake, Joe Fontaine, John Graff, Greg Howell, Pat Kelly, Maris
Lauva, John Lillywhite, Kath Lindann, Mel Lintern, John  Litherland,
Albert Low, Wayne Merritt, Clive Nealon, Yann Pichon (France), Robyn
Pickering, Ian Reid (UK), Andrew Sherwin, Coralie Sherwin, Pam Smith,
Mark Stanley, Derek Taylor, Nathan Waugh, Peter White.

Conditions :

Departed Hillarys Boat Harbour at 7.05am.  Returned at
3.40pm.  After a week of fine weather, the forecast was for another
fine day with a 1 metre sea and a 2.5 metre swell with a maximum of
20°C.  The wave height was forecast to be 3.2 metres rising to about
3.4 metres late in the day.  The winds were forecast to be 5 to 10
knots E, calming by lunch and swinging to the S.  There was some
cloud but the light conditions were generally good.  The internet
indicated that the ocean surface temperatures would be about 18°C to
20°C, which is cooler than the past few years.

Description :

The highlights of the trip were the abundance of Yellow-nosed
Albatross, Hutton's Shearwaters and Australasian Gannets.  The chum
and fish oil worked well at bringing the albatross in close, giving
excellent opportunities for photography.  The disappointment was the
very small number of petrels. 

 From Hillarys we headed roughly WSW heading for the trench NW of
Rottnest Island.  By the time we were roughly north of Rottnest
Island we had seen high numbers of Australasian
Gannets (all but one were adults), regular passage of small
numbers of Hutton's Shearwaters, the first
few Yellow-nosed Albatross, a few
Brown Skuas and a distant
Humpback Whale performing many tail slaps
and breaches.  We stopped briefly for mother and calf
Humpback Whales passing across the front of
the boat with the depth at 44 metres.

Just after 9am we slowed as we saw the first
White-faced Storm-Petrel.  We were at
the north end of the trench.  We started to chum, laying out an oil
slick and burley trail whilst motoring slowly S at 5 knots.  The
number of Yellow-nosed Albatross increased
and we stopped the boat with the depth at roughly 450 metres.  The
albatross were attracted to the slick and increased to 30 but very little
else was seen except for several White-faced
Storm-Petrels and finally a Soft-plumaged
Petrel made a close pass.  After 70 minutes we moved on.

For the first time, we had a boat that had access to satellite data for
sea surface temperature, currents and plankton.  We headed SSE for
an area of water with 17°C sea surface temperature.  It had been
several years since we had had a temperature less than 20°C, so the hopes
were high for a good variety of species.  We stopped when we saw a
Great-winged Petrel and a
Flesh-footed Shearwater in the mid distance
with the depth at 260 metres.  The
Great-winged Petrel was the only one seen
during the day and it never reappeared.  The shearwater did pass
close by. The number of Yellow-nosed Albatross increased with up to 60
around the boat.  There was good numbers of
Australasian Gannets in the vicinity as we
drifted with a few more immatures.  But there were no petrels which
is very unusual.

We moved back to the N checking out points of interest from the satellite
data.  We stopped for short periods when we saw something of
interest, but we failed to find any large congregations of birds.  A
few people very briefly saw a Wilson's
Storm-Petrel.  A Brown Skua
chased a Soft-plumaged Petrel behind the
boat.  An immature Black-browed
Albatross made a pass.  We had lunch where the depth was 260
metres.  We had drifted S back to about 400 metres by 13:30 when we
headed for home.  We stopped for mother and calf
Humpback Whales passing very close to the
location we had seen them on the way out. 

In summary, we had a very high numbers of a few species but a surprising
lack of the less common species.  This was in spite of the colder
water, the satellite data and an excellent burley trail.

Bird List (Christidis & Boles order) Total Number (Maximum at Same
Time) :

Wilson's Storm-Petrel 1 (1)
White-faced Storm-Petrel 12 (4)
Black-browed Albatross  1 (1) (immature)
Yellow-nosed Albatross (race bassi)
210 (60)
Flesh-footed Shearwater 4 (1)
Hutton?s Shearwater 90 (12)
Soft-plumaged Petrel 2 (1)
Great-winged Petrel 1 (1)
Australasian Gannet 400 (80) (15 immatures)
Brown Skua 9 (2) 
Crested Tern 50 (15) 

The following were seen in the harbour.

Australasian Darter 1 male
Little Pied Cormorant 2
Great Cormorant 2
Little Black Cormorant 2
Pied Cormorant 30
Pacific Gull 2 immatures
Silver Gull 15
Australian Raven 1
Welcome Swallow 10

Mammal List :

Humpback Whale (Megaptera
novaeangliae) 5 (2)
Dolphin sp. 1+ (1+)

_________________________________________________________________
Frank O'Connor           Birding WA http://birdingwa.iinet.net.au
Phone : (08) 9386 5694              Email :

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